Select gaming sites have been given a hands-on preview of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet in a special one-hour playthrough of a limited demo version. While there are no new Pokémon revealed through these previews, there are many small details that were noticed and are worth sharing. We’ve compiled some of the highlights below!
Serebii
- Shiny Pokémon appear in the overworld; Joe encountered one during his preview
- Wild Pokémon are always in the overworld now, no more random encounters
- Moves can be relearned and changed at any time
- Trainer appearance can be changed on the fly, except hair
- It seems all trainers have access to all clothes, they’re no longer gender locked
- Tera Raids seemed more streamlined and more difficult
IGN
- Creating sandwiches was boring, but did have some buffs that may make players use the feature
- Auto-battles almost necessary to find all the materials for crafting TMs
- NPCs who want to battle have an icon above their head and must be interacted with to battle with
- Customization options for trainers where much more robust than previous games
GameSpot
- Pokémon combat, both with wild Pokémon and trainers, seems de-emphasized compared to more traditional gameplay of past games
- Koraidon’s body sometime blocked view of smaller wild Pokémon and running into them would initiate a battle, which could be annoying
- Game really seemed to push Switch to its limits and beyond, as performance suffered
PhillyBeatzU
- Day/night cycle is independent of your Switch’s clock and doesn’t seem to be able to be manipulated like Pokémon Legends: Arceus
- Wild Pokémon variety seems to be good, as well as density
- Glowing Pokémon are stronger, may have different Tera-type
Eurogamer
Their article can be found here.
- Game is open world, but some large cities have loading screens and are distinct areas
- Traveling on Koraidon or Miraidon was easy, but not ‘smooth’
- Exploring the open world was fun, environment seemed very diverse in even such a small section
- City of Mesagoza was big and impressive looking, but many shops were just window-dressing and couldn’t actually be entered
- Performance issues were concerning
Let us know if any of these new details have you even more excited for the games! Don’t forget to also join our Discord server for real-time Pokémon discussions.
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